


Like A House On Fire

by ifeelbetter



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-11 15:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5631085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifeelbetter/pseuds/ifeelbetter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe has to learn to get along with Rey if he wants to keep hanging around Finn. It's harder to do than he thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to [imaginaryelle](http://imaginaryelle.tumblr.com/) over on tumblr for being an ongoing font of wisdom, spelling, and general common sense.

Finn was wheeled quickly beyond the crowd of people celebrating both their own survival and the more general victory. Then he was out of sight. Poe was briefly caught up in the crowd around the hanger and couldn't quite extract himself, though he craned to see which direction Finn was being wheeled. More than a few people, some dear friends, had been completely cut off from the reports as they came in and it would be cruel to disappear too quickly for them to confirm that, yes, despite the odds, he made it back. Jess caught him in a tight hug as he passed her, Snap coming around the other side and both of them pressing a bit too close for a second. 

"That was close," said Jess and Poe huffed a laugh because she would understate everything until the day she died and that day was not today.

By the time he made it to the medics, Finn had already been ushered past the point where healthy people were allowed and this was inconveniently not one of the many times when Poe was himself ushered beyond after a mission.

General Organa appeared with an arm around a tall-ish girl and Poe realized that this, this was the hero of the moment, the miracle of the mission and he was horrified to find that he wanted nothing more than to kick her out–-to kick them _both_ out–-and barricade himself in with Finn.  
He settled for folding his arms and only glowering a _little_.

“Poe,” said the General with a nod. “You’ve met–”

“No,” he said, too quickly. The General raised an eyebrow but continued without pause.

“–Rey, who I think will be a great asset. She clearly is very sensitive to the Force and might be just the bargaining chip we need to convince my brother to return.” She maybe emphasized _great asset_ a bit too much for Poe’s taste, who considered the _great asset_ to be the one who somehow got his back slashed open on this girl’s watch, but he could see the General’s point. Also. He was an adult.

He nodded and stiffly held out a hand. Rey shook it just as stiffly.

“Oh good, I’m sure you’ll be fast friends,” said the General and there was just the hint of smothered laughter in her tone. “Someone get me a report on Finn’s condition,” she said to the medidroid hovering nearby.

“I can go and–” Poe started to say, but Rey was speaking at the same time.

“Let me go and–”

They both went silent and regarded each other sullenly. The medidroid, however, made that polite whirring sound that Poe mentally cataloged as “throat clearing” when BB-8 did it.

“I will make you aware as Finn’s treatment continues,” it said primly. “ _All_ of you.”

“I’ll wait,” said Poe, pulling out a stool.

“Me too,” said Rey, eyes darting between him, the medidroid, and the General. “If he can wait here, so can I.”

The General smiled and Poe knew her well enough to know that smile was the one that was warm around the edges but sad and lonely somewhere deep inside. She pulled Rey in for a hug, quick and tight, and then patted Poe on the shoulder.

“Keep me appraised,” she said and left to see to the other wounded, the other heroes of the moment who needed her. Poe was struck yet again—as he so often was–-that the General seemed to have an infinite amount of room in her heart for someone who was so fierce. He’d known many heroes, but she was something of an entirely different stuff.

***

They waited. Two hours later, sore from sitting on the cramped stool, Poe stretched.

Rey crossed her arms.

A quick check with the nearest medidroid gave back the report that Finn’s conditional was nearer stability, but that more time was needed.

They kept waiting.

***

Poe awoke with an undignified snort and realized it was because someone was shifting Rey in her sleep. It was, he realized, Chewbacca picking Rey up from where she was curled up into Poe’s side on the floor…on the floor of the medical bay, right, because they were waiting. He could see beyond Chewbacca to the open bay doors and, where it had been bright sunlight streaming in last he checked and was pitch black now.

Rey gripped onto a strap on the outer inflatable vest of Poe’s uniform in her sleep, refusing to be pulled away. It occurred to Poe how gentle the Wookie was being if the simple weight of her grip was holding him back. It also occurred to him that he might not have ever seen Chewbacca be so gentle in all the years he had known him. General Solo never needed anyone to be gentle with him–

–and then the druggat dropped and Poe remembered with a swoop of his stomach that Han Solo was dead.

Rey’s hand tightened again on the strap and one of his hands automatically hovered over hers, not quite touching. 

It was the least he could do, he realized, because this girl was someone special not just to Finn, still unconscious beyond the double doors, but also to others. Special to General Solo especially. Poe might not know her---might not _want_ her there at that particular moment---but that wasn’t even the majority opinion. 

Poe shrugged out of the inflatable vest Rey was gripping, letting her take it with her as Chewbacca lifted her up.

Chewbacca assessed Poe briefly–- _barely_ –and howled dismissively, “whatever.”

Rey, though. He was holding her so delicately and Poe realized that Rey’s grip on the strap of his uniform was just part of a general distress, a quiet sort of distress in the twitching of her eyelids and tiny convulsions in her fingers, and he reached out towards her face without even thinking about it. He brushed the hair off her forehead and she turned just slightly in the direction of his fingertips.

Chewbacca nodded this time and said, “better.” Wookies didn’t usually bother with full sentences except for people they especially liked or if something really important was on fire. They tended to get the point across as efficiently as possible even then.

“Go to your bed,” Chewbacca commanded. He shifted Rey in his grip so that she was nestled into his arms, curled up towards and against him.

“Yeah, ok,” said Poe and watched them leave before he also found his way to his feet. It didn’t seem fair to stay when Rey had been carried off in her sleep–-like cheating, somehow.

***

They were both back the next day.

The report was: Finn was in a “medically induced” coma which was different from other comas in ways that were clearly too subtle for Poe to see. Either way, he was out of the bacta tank for now and breathing on his own, which seemed good.

“I don’t understand, why is being out of the ‘bacta tank’ a good thing?” asked Rey, looking between the droid and Poe. “What even _is_ a bacta tank?”

“It’s a healing tank,” said Poe as the droid clearly started booting up to give the technical explanation. “If he’s out of the tank, he’s stable. Healing.”

Rey took a deep breath, like she hadn’t been breathing for ages. 

“We still have to wait, though,” she said, not a question. 

“Yeah,” he agreed, settling back onto his stool. 

BB-8 joined them later and Poe started half-heartedly cleaning out his encrusted circuits and digging the jammed sand out of his shell.

Rey didn’t watch exactly, but seemed to know which tool he would need next before he looked up to try to find it. She held each one out toward him, her gaze steady but still not exactly friendly. The rest of the time, she was focused on a tiny schematic of the map to Skywalker. 

Poe found himself biting his lip when he looked back down after their hands brushed.

***

When they were finally allowed in to see Finn, they were instructed that it had to be one at a time.

“Too much too fast could be detrimental to his health,” the medidroid explained. “Who shall be first?”

Poe and Rey glared at each other a moment in silence.

“I met him first,” said Poe.

“Yeah, well, I spent more time with him,” said Rey.

“I’m older than you.”

“I’m _younger_ than you.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. Why should you being younger get you in first?”

“Oh, like it makes so much more sense that you go first from being older?”

“I’m just saying, age before wis—”

Rey cut him off with a loud snort and, yeah, fair point. She folded her arms defiantly.

“Fine,” said Poe. “I can be the adult here. You go first.”

Her glare intensified. “No, _I’m_ going to be the adult here. _You_ go first.”

“No,” insisted Poe. “Ladies first.”

“ _Fuck_ ladies,” said Rey. “You. Go. First.”

“OK, I really am going to go first then, you said it,” said Poe. “So I’m going first.”

Rey waved sarcastically the door. “There’s the way in,” she said. “You just have to put one foot in front of the other.”

***

“Your girlfriend is _so annoying_ ,” Poe told Finn’s motionless form.

***

“Your boyfriend is _the worst_ ,” said Rey to Finn as soon as the door closed behind her.

***

The next few days were quiet after the raucousness of the celebration. Too many dead, too many funereal rites. Poe carried at least a dozen caskets to burial sites and spent hours upon hours in the vidbooth calling widows and parents. Between that and trying to scrounge together a new fleet of spaceworthy crafts out of the leftovers--ships that had already been retired for one reason or another--Poe's days were packed. Between all these tasks, though, he managed to find his way back to the medbay and, thanks to a tenuous accord reached with Rey, he didn't even have to share his time slots. 

Eventually, Rey had to leave. Luke Skywalker–-against all common sense–-was not going to return on his own, apparently, and really did need someone to go fetch him. The General was right, Rey would be the best emissary in that capacity and Rey herself couldn’t deny that she needed to know more and he was the only one who could help.

Outside the medbay, Poe pulled at the sleeve of his jacket-–not the one split in half currently sitting at Finn’s side—and fidgeted because it really did feel like cheating to think of getting to toss the careful schedule of rotating shifts with Rey. It was alright to press for more time with Finn or to insist that he get first slot of the day if Rey was there, but it felt like pressing an unfair advantage to hog all of his coma time if she had to leave.

It was actually his turn in Finn's room, but he pretended not to remember so that Rey could duck in and say her goodbyes. He returned to the hanger and did a perfunctory sweep of his T-70, flipping open and closed various control panels just to dawdle. He made his way to the medical bay afterward, just in time to see through the open door as Rey finished brushing a quick kiss to Finn’s forehead. He coughed loudly so that she would know she was being observed and by who.

She looked up and their eyes met. There was just a hint of gloss to her eyes–-not teary, but somewhere along to way to teary. Poe looked away.

She stood, straight and tall, and joined him in the doorway.

“You’ll watch over him,” she said. It wasn’t a question but it also wasn’t certainty-–not asking him   
to, but hoping.

“Of course,” Poe said. _Even if you hadn’t just assumed you were the only one who cares about him_ , he wanted to say, irrational and sullen. _As if he wasn’t already my top priority._

“And you’ll send word if–” Her jaw clenched. Poe softened. Yeah, Finn was his top priority, but Rey didn’t have the luxury of choosing hers. 

“If anything changes. When. When it changes,” said Poe.

She nodded. 

***

Poe helped Chewbacca load up supplies and do his last checks on the Falcon. He knew for a fact that Rey was having her last meeting with General Organa, probably very classified material being exchanged, and he didn’t want, you know, anything to suffer from neglect. It was the Falcon, after all: historically significant, yes, but also, strictly speaking, spacejunk. 

“Stupid,” yowled Chewbacca and threw a spanner in Poe’s general direction. Poe assumed Chewbacca had heard the disparaging thought about the Falcon. That, or he knew everybody who wasn’t Rey, Han, or himself wouldn’t trust the ship farther than they could throw her. 

No one had any way of predicting what kind of planet Skywalker had chosen for his refuge, Poe thought as he carefully stowed the spanner. It might be freezing. It might be rainy. 

It’s not like Rey had a lot of experience with rainy planets, he reasoned. 

That was why--- _that_ was specifically, solely, why---he fetched one of his more durable jackets from his room and stuffed it into the container with the rest of the outerwear. He’d worn it on a mission to Daroon a while back and he’d spent half the mission at least with it draped over his head as the rain poured down like pellets. If the planet she ended up on was rainy, she’d be covered. 

He was just arriving at the thought, ‘Oh no, what if it’s _cold_ not rainy’ when Rey and General Organa arrived. 

“I was not touching anything,” he said quickly. The General gave him that look again, the one that made him want to apologize for things he hadn’t even done yet, but didn’t she comment. 

“He’s so stupid,” said Chewbacca to the General. He threw something softer at Poe this time, but Poe didn’t stop to look at it. He tossed it behind him onto the open container so it hid the jacket.

“I should go--I should probably go to--,” he started to say, pushing past the General and Rey both. He didn’t have anything to rush off toward, but he knew when he was the third wheel on an upcoming emotional scene. If things had worked out differently, everyone knew Han Solo had offered this girl a job. Everyone knew Chewbacca---who hadn’t chosen anyone Han hadn’t chosen first in over four decades---chose her to be his co-pilot. Hell, if things had worked out differently, this might have been Rey’s new family.

He stopped at the bay doors and turned. 

“Rey!” he shouted. 

“What?” she shouted back, looking over her shoulder. 

“You better come back,” he said. 

She huffed and turned back to Chewbacca, who was holding up a laser calliper in one hand and something that looked an awful lot like a homemade Meson taloscope in the other. 

Poe nodded to her back. She’d be fine. Probably. She was mostly annoying and he didn’t care. 

***

Poe tried to stick to his fair share of time with Finn after Rey left, but it was more difficult than he’d thought it’d be. It didn’t help that no new missions were being planned until they got word back about Rey’s mission. There wasn’t much to do while the First Order troupes they had been tracking before the Starkiller base had lost their Resistance tails and left to regroup who-the-hell-knows-where and Force knows they had plenty of wounds of their own to lick in the meantime. Even the funeral services finally wound down. 

It was just that he didn’t sleep so well. 

During the day, he went about his business like a normal, rational soldier. He did his drills, trained with the rookies, and put in his time in repairs. He could sit in the cafeteria with Jess and Snap and the rest and he’d joke and laugh and everything was _fine_. 

And then he’d wake up again in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and sure---absolutely, gut-clenchingly sure---that Kylo Ren was standing over him, one hand somewhere in his brain and he was squeezing. 

So he’d go jogging around the complex in that pre-dawn greyness and find his way back to sleep for maybe another hour (if he was lucky) sometime just before first call. 

By the time he found his pocket of time to lounge around in Finn’s room each day--the new room, dedicated entirely to Finn, less starkly white and antiseptic and more just clean and empty---he’d be so tired he could have fallen over. And with his feet propped up on the base of Finn’s cot and his head resting against the back wall, the only door was across from him and between that and Finn’s steady breathing, he could sleep. 

So he bent the rules---well, not _rules_ so much as the unspoken division of time he and Rey had reached when she’d been there. What had been an hour became two, became three. 

It wasn’t perfect but it worked. It would do. 

***

Given the fact that Finn utterly defied expectation at every turn, it shouldn’t have been so surprising that Finn ended up waking up Poe and not the other way around. Poe was sleeping more and more with his feet propped up on Finn’s cot and Finn was---every medical professional on the planet assured Poe---doing well, getting better all the time. It was only the fact that they kept telling him that and he kept _looking at Finn_ and seeing nothing but an inert form that had kept him from really believing them. 

He felt someone’s hand on his face and he started backwards so fast and so vehemently that he hit his head on something dangling overhead and he swore and rubbed the spot before he realized--

“Oh, damn, I’m sorry,” said Finn. “Are you okay?”

He had pushed himself up onto his elbows and that looked like it hurt because he was wincing. 

“What? Yes I just hit my--” Poe said and then gaped at Finn. “Finn! You’re awake!”

Finn nodded but his focus was still on Poe’s head and he pulled on Poe’s arm until Poe had to duck towards him to avoid hitting the---the medical...thingy(??) overhead again. 

“Let me see,” Finn insisted and Poe honestly had not a single clue what he meant until he felt Finn’s fingers at the spot that hurt, somewhere in his hair. “Let me _see_ ,” Finn repeated and tugged harder on Poe’s sleeve. 

Poe ducked all the way down and let his head be examined. 

“No abrasions,” said Finn thoughtfully. “Slight swelling.” He let go of Poe’s sleeve and Poe straightened. 

“Sorry,” said Poe. Then: “You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh,” said Finn, smiling, “sort of? I mean, I passed all the certifications. But only field medical stuff. You know, emergencies.”

Poe had reached the end of the small talk he could make because holy shit Finn was okay, he really was. 

“You look good,” said Poe, nonsensically. “I mean---just, that it’s good to see you.”

“Thanks,” said Finn. He winced as he shifted again, clearly pulling something on his back. 

“I should get someone--” said Poe, and ran to tell the medidroids. They bustled him out a moment later and Poe…

...Poe ran away. 

***

“--so this is me--” he told the holovid recorder attachment on BB-8. “--telling you, Rey, that Finn is fine. Awake. He’s fine and he’s awake. Like we knew he would be. Of course.”

He reached down and switched off BB-8’s recorder. He let out a long sigh. 

_That was a completely standard holovid message_ , BB-8 assured him. 

“Yeah, sure,” said Poe. 

_You have delivered all the requisite information in a moderately efficient manner_ , said BB-8. _She will judge you to be a moderately efficient human with fantastic hair._

“Flatterer,” laughed Poe, patting BB-8’s chrome. But he did feel better. 

***

“So two weeks of pining at his sickbed and the minute he wakes up, you book?” asked Jess, sliding back into her seat with another pair of bright blue drinks. The last round had been pink and it had been _delicious_ so Poe wasn’t complaining. 

“I wasn’t _pining_ ,” said Poe. “I was….waiting.” He tried for dignified detachment and was horrified at how he landed more in the territory of...well, pining. And generally pathetic. 

“Uh huh,” said Jess sarcastically. 

He dropped his head onto the tabletop in front of him. “I just wish we had a mission,” he said mournfully. “I wish I could just go be heroic somewhere and maybe die and maybe he’d cry.”

“Not pining at all,” said Jess. She downed her drink in one go. “And don’t jinx us.”

***

Of course he jinxed them.

***

“You have to leave?” asked Finn, wide open and sad. Then he clearly caught himself and schooled his features into what he thought was something more appropriate but not at all in reality achieving it. Poe resisted the urge to laugh at the absolute readability of Finn's face. 

“It’s just a quick mission,” said Poe. “In and out. We’ll be back in, like….a week.”

“A _week_?!”

“Two, tops.” Poe bit his lip and looked at his feet. “I, um, I could file some paperwork and, um, I could make you one of my emergency contacts? If you like? So you can be informed if anything--”

“Like what?!”

“--not that anything _will_ , but, you know, just in case anything….happened.” 

Finn’s eyes were wide but he nodded quickly. “I’d--I’d be honored to be your emergency contact,” he said solemnly. Poe winced from the sheer sincerity. 

“One of my contacts, I still have my dad back on Yavin 4, but it’s--I mean, it’s not---I don’t want to make extra trouble for you,” said Poe. “I just thought….if you wanted?”

Finn nodded solemnly again. “What do I have to do?” he asked, sitting up straighter in the bed. “I can’t really stand for very long right now, but if I--”

“No, nothing like that!” said Poe, pulling the folded up paper out of his pocket. “Just sign your name here,” he said, pointing. “And full name there.”

“That’s all?” asked Finn, looking somewhat disappointed at the partially crumpled sheet. 

“And you can hand it to a medidroid when they come back,” said Poe. “But, I should really go.”

It was so true, he was supposed to launch in twenty minutes and he hadn’t even done half his checks yet. 

“Oh! Absolutely, you should go,” said Finn firmly. “I can handle this.” He waved the paper in the air. “I have always had an aptitude for paperwork. All my supervisors said so.”

“Good, that’s….good,” said Poe, not wanting to touch that with a ten-foot pole. He started to leave and then turned back. “Just...it was good to see you.”

“Yeah,” said Finn, so fond and open and Poe needed to leave quickly. “It was good to see you too.”

***

“Did you dip him when you kissed?” asked Jess when she tossed him his helmet. “Did he swoon? Did _you_?”

“Shut it, Testor,” he said.

She made absurd kissing noises at him while he secured the cockpit. 

***

He noticed a few days later when he checked in that his ID had two links under “emergency contact” instead of just the one it had had before. The box was so small, though, he couldn’t see anything other than an “F--” next to the new one. 

It still made something clench inside his heart and he had to bite his lip to stop himself from grinning like an idiot at the screen. 

***

When he checked back in a week and a half later en route back to base, there was a blinking dot next to “Messages.”

He opened it and watched as a tiny holographic Rey flickered into existence on his dock. 

“Message received,” she said brusquely. She stooped down as if to turn the holovid off but then she changed her mind and straightened. “I appreciate it,” she added. “Thank you.”

The figured flickered and disappeared. 

He didn’t bother not to smile. No one was around to see it, after all. 

***

When he got back to base, Finn was waiting in the docking bay. Poe jumped out of his cockpit and didn’t even bother to hide his enthusiasm when he caught Finn up in a hug that pulled Finn a little off his feet. 

“You’re back!” said Finn. “You made it!”

Poe grinned back and opened his mouth to respond but Jess was suddenly at his side, clapping him on the shoulder.

"I haven't seen such sloppy flying from you since back in your Academy days, Dameron," said Jess. "Getting soft in your old age?"

"Bite me, Testor," said Poe with a laugh. "I was marvelous then and I'm a marvel now."

Finn looked back and forth between them. 

“Finn, this is Jess Pava,” said Poe, waving his helmet at Jess. “And Jess, this is--”

“Finn Dameron,” said Finn and Poe nearly swallowed his tongue. “Nice to meet you,” Finn continued and pulled Jess in for a hug as well. 

She looked at Poe over Finn’s shoulder and mouthed _what the fuck_. 

Poe shrugged, eyes wide. 

“You don’t mind, do you, Poe?” asked Finn, turning back to Poe. “I needed a surname for the form and the medidroid said it was related to familial line, but I don’t have one of those so I thought, you know, an emergency contact is sort of like a familial line, right?” 

Poe nodded. “Sure, just like that.” He grinned. “You’re welcome to it.”

“Is this your whole squad?” Finn continued, moving past him. He started introducing himself to each of them in turn and just when they were about to reach out for a handshake, he went in for the hug instead. 

“Is he _real_?” asked Jess at Poe’s side. 

“Yeah,” Poe breathed. “ _So_ real.”

***

Poe didn’t really have a _reason_ exactly for the next holovid, but it seemed polite. Neighborly. Something. It seemed fair, mostly, to keep Rey up to date. 

“--and the mission was a success and Finn is,” he said to BB-8’s holovid recorder and then sighed. “Finn is fine. He misses you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I hope you’re--I hope you’re well.”

He reached down and turned of the recorder. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

 _It’s fine, Friend-Poe_ , said BB-8. _She would have learned your true nature at some point anyway._

“Yeah, but maybe I could have fooled her into thinking I was suave for, like, two more weeks,” said Poe. 

_I do not believe that is a reasonable extrapolation from past data_ , said BB-8 and then rolled away before Poe could protest. 

***

The next week a smuggler arrived with cargo he had gotten from another smuggler who had gotten it from _another_ smuggler who had gotten it from Rey. 

The package was mostly technical data--records, plans, necessary information. But it also contained a vacuum-sealed package of some sort of ration-bread thing with directions addressed to Finn for how to eat it and a small fuzzy parcel addressed, oddly enough, to Poe. 

It turned out to be a….not a jacket and not really a sweater. It was brown and lumpy and so, so, so warm and comfortable. 

The only note Rey had attached said: Sleep well.

He hadn’t been sleeping well, of course. Not since Finn stopped being a safe corner of the base where Poe could keep his back to the wall and his friend’s quiet breath in his ear. Did she know? Was this….was this a Force thing?

He ignored the parcel on his bed until the night was quiet and so dark and then he pulled it on and curled up in the corner of his bed, pressed up against the corner-join of the walls and he slept.

He slept quiet and deep until well past dawn. 

***

Finn continued to be a marvel. He made friends quickly and with absolutely everyone. Even Commander Nunb, who absolutely everyone knew did not make friends, was charmed by Finn’s habit of hugging first and asking questions later. Finn even sat through a whole meal with Commander Nunb and the scuttlebutt said someone even heard Finn _laugh_ and Commander Nunb had never, ever made a single joke in his whole life. 

Finn mostly listened so intently and so enthusiastically that it would take a monster to withstand the barrage of his friendliness. 

General Organa found him in his physical therapy session about a week after he woke up and watched calmly as he went through the motions. A couple of times, she snapped out a quick, “Again,” and he nodded, grateful and guilty about how clearly he needed the order to get the job done. 

Poe, who had volunteered to help him with the routines, found that nothing he said in careful, affectionate terms worked so well as the General’s quick, clipped, “Again.” So, after a while, he just stayed on the sidelines and watched, feeling oddly cut off even while in the same room as them. 

The General’s mood had been grim since the Starkiller mission, but somehow standing with her arms folded watching Finn try do push-ups made her come back out of the cocoon of sadness. When they finished, she patted Finn’s cheek, proud and happy and sad all at once. 

“You’re a good man,” she said. 

Poe---who had said so himself on more than one occasion---couldn’t keep the stupid grin off his face. He was so proud of Finn, so happy to share in everyone’s pride in Finn, even if he only got to do it from the audience rows. 

***

Finn somehow seemed to become a part of _everything_ around the base. When Poe turned a corner, there was Finn helping a repair crew or holding the medbag for a doctor or even one time patiently painting a gold layer onto C3PO’s red arm and listening patiently as the droid complained. 

Jess took him flying. _Jess Pava._ She wasn’t even in the top five of pilots on the base, whatever she said. She was, like, _sixth_ best. If that. 

She shrugged apologetically later and said, “he asked me.” OK, so maybe she was second best after all. 

Snap ran gunner drills with Finn over the next mountain ridge and they came back laughing. 

“Hey, Poe,” said Finn cheerfully as they passed. “See you at dinner?” Finn had an arm around Snap’s shoulders as they walked. 

“Yeah,” said Poe, watching as they walked away. 

He recited his own gunner scores in his head, all of which were better than Snap’s. 

***

Poe turned his attention to building a new squadron. He’d lost a lot of pilots in that last mission and, even if the recruits were suddenly pouring in from the former Republic Army, they weren’t anywhere near ready. Any day, the First Order could start up again and Poe wasn’t sure what he’d be able to get done with raw recruits. Some of the pilots he had lost had been flying with him since they were all in simulators in the first year of the Academy. They had all been top notch, and they'd been blown out of the sky. He couldn't make so with any less, not when his people's best had barely cut it last time. 

He spent most days training, running through flight and combat tests, and all the while Finn never once came to him for the training he was clearly picking up elsewhere. They overlapped every now and then over meals and Finn was….everything he always was. With everyone. 

Happy, open, and so so honest. He told Poe’s new squad members about how they met and grabbed Poe’s hand a couple of times, pulled him to his feet to demonstrate a couple of moves. And, yeah, it was adorable when he made the blaster sounds for the TIE fighter and, yeah, he kept Poe close with an arm draped around his shoulders, but, no, it didn’t mean anything. 

When they sat in Poe’s bunk in the evenings, though, and Finn leaned even closer towards Poe, close enough that Poe’s breath often caught in his throat, Finn would inevitably turn the conversation to Rey’s latest holovid. Even when a new holovid finally relieved the questions of the last, it was like he had some sort of encyclopedic recall of the entire backlog of holovids. He’d wonder if _maybe Rey has changed her mind because she hated the sea mist three weeks ago, but now she’s calling it ‘bracing’ and ‘thrilling’_ and then again _I would have thought she would never want to touch ration packs again, but I think she might actually miss them._

And every one would end with bright, honest eyes turned toward Poe and the same expectant, forthright, “what do you think, Poe?”

Poe wished he could tamp down on the urge to say something cutting or, even worse, the stupid impulse to do something heroic to get Finn’s attention onto him. 

Instead, he said, “maybe she figured out where the raincoats are,” or “sometimes you miss what’s familiar.”

And Finn would smile or nod thoughtfully and dive back down into more musings about Rey. 

Poe got his own message from Rey a couple of weeks later. The tiny figure looked more loose, like something had finally unclenched after a lifetime of strict control. 

She was also wearing the jacket he had stowed in her luggage. 

“Thank you, Poe Dameron,” she said formally, a bit like she was reciting something she had memorized. “Your gift has been incredibly helpful. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and care.” Then she cocked her head to one side as if she was listening to someone beyond Poe, someone out of scope of the holovid. “I also appreciate that you have time to devote to Finn that I do not.” She folded her arms and huffed a breath out from between her teeth. She looked like she was going to say something snide, but then she clearly changed her mind. 

“I wish I could be there with you. With you both.”

It was honest and raw. Poe was struck by how much her honesty must cost her, and how comforting it must be for her to be faced with Finn’s barrage of honest friendliness. 

“Please….send me another message, Poe. I...like hearing from you,” the tiny Rey said. 

Poe’s heart did a clench and he thought with absolute horror, _Oh no, Poe, don’t you dare--_

But it was really an inevitability. Finn and Rey---how could you like one and not both? To appreciate the frankness and undiluted joy of the one, how could you ignore the resilience and the steadfastness of the other?

The tiny figure sighed and bent to turn off the recorder. 

_You must respond with equal candor and affection,_ instructed BB-8 primly at Poe’s side. _Anything less would be an insult to Friend-Rey, who is deserving of much care._

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” said Poe thoughtfully. 

He’d been cruel, he realized. He’d been selfish and cold to someone who deserved better---who _was_ better. 

***

He attached a digi-novel to his holovid. It was the kind he had always loved, about a princess with just a little skill with the Force who manages to defeat a band of pirates and save her kingdom and then reforms the pirates and they all rule the kingdom as a republic and live happily ever after. Everyone is a hero and nobody loses, that had always been his favorite genre. His mother used to read them out loud to him, right up until she died even though he should have been too old to be read aloud to. 

His father had sent this novel to him a cycle ago and he’d rushed through it at breakneck speed. 

“I’m sending you a novel,” he told the holovid recorder. “I, um. I hope you like it.”

He fiddled with the controls without turning off the recorder. BB-8 chided him with a low chirp. 

“I’m glad to talk to you, Rey,” he said finally, turning to face the recorder directly, looking straight into BB-8’s viewfinder. “You’re a good person and I hope you count me as your friend. I’d like it if you would.”

BB-8 practically purred.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a big delay as I had some real life stuff get in the way of writing super important polyamory fic. So rude, RL. Get back in your lane. I will be much faster with the third part. 
> 
> Probably.

The news that Rey had achieved her goal and was finally returning with the promised Luke Skywalker only predated the appearance of the Millennium Falcon in the sky by about two hours. 

Still, Finn was waiting at the foot of the ramp when it was lowered. Without even waiting for the ramp to actually touch ground, he jumped up and was halfway up when Rey met him at an equally breakneck speed. 

Finn always hugged like he was trying for some kind of world championship, but Rey---Rey hugged liked no one ever had hugged her before. Finn said something in her ear and her shoulders shook like she was maybe laughing but just as easily could have been crying. 

Poe resolutely turned his attention to the robed figure coming down behind Rey. Luke Skywalker had to cough a little to get them to make way on the narrow ramp as he edged around them.

“Sir,” said Poe, standing to attention the way he had back in the Republic’s highly formalized ranks. It wasn’t how the Resistance did things, but, hell, sometimes there’s a person who you can’t help but go to full attention for. 

“Oh, stand the hell down, Dameron,” said the General behind him. She walked up to Luke and slapped him hard once across the cheek. “ _That’s_ for making me play at treasure hunting in the middle of my war.”

“Leia,” said Skywalker. His voice was hoarse and full of so many unutterable things. He and his sister just looked at each other for a moment.

“Come here, baby brother,” she said and pulled him in for a hug. 

“We’re _twins_ , Leia,” said Skywalker with his head hooked over her shoulder. “We were born at the same time.”

“I’ll stop calling you baby when you stop acting like one,” she said. 

Poe turned away from that and found he was saved by a droid. R2-D2 rolled down the ramp with Chewbacca close behind. While Chewbacca went over to moan his greetings to the General, R2 came to a rolling stop in front of Poe. 

BB-8 came out from behind Poe to chatter to R2.

_My human has behaved admirably. He has performed six interspace missions, one of which was of two weeks’ duration_ , BB-8 told R2 and Poe rolled his eyes. 

“Hi, R2,” he said, kneeling in front of the bigger of the two droids. “How’s your tech holding up?”

_I believe my shell has become encrusted with barnacles_ , said R2. He spun in a circle to demonstrate and, while there were no barnacles, the sea air had clearly been eating away at his paint. 

“I see your point,” he said because he knew a little something about soothing droid ire. Then, because he sometimes couldn’t shut up when he knew he should shut up: “You’ve been very heroic in sacrificing so much for the cause.”

_My human is being sarcastic at you_ , BB-8 told R2. He spun his head to face Poe. _Do not do that. It is rude._

“Yeah, never be sarcastic to a droid, Poe,” said Rey from behind R2-D2. She held her hand out to Poe, less stiffly than the first time they had shaken hands. “It’s good to see you.”

Poe smiled and took the hand as offered. “You too.”

Finn beamed and Rey bent to say hello to BB-8---on his level, which was something most organics forgot when interacting with him. 

“I was just gonna go and get Touchy here cleaned of all that sea air,” said Poe to Finn, nodding towards R2. “Let you two have a moment.”

Finn looked puzzled briefly, but (thankfully) took Poe’s words at face value. 

“Sure! Maybe I’ll find you later for dinner?” he asked. 

“Yeah, buddy. Maybe later,” agreed Poe. He was pretty sure Rey and Finn would be too wrapped up in each other to come up for air for another day at least, so he wasn’t putting much stock in the tentative plans. “Come on, R2.”

As he walked off, he heard Rey say, “Oh, is he leaving--” and then he was out the door. 

R2-D2 leaned back with a mechanical whir and said, _Your behavior is erratic and your emotions are chaotic. I like you._

“Thanks,” said Poe with a laugh. “I guess if the stories are true, that’s your type, huh?”

***

He got back in the soft monstrosity of a sweater Rey had sent him that night and counted to himself as he fell asleep.

He only woke up once with the feeling of fingers in his brain and he lay awake for an hour afterward, counting his breath. 

In the morning, he woke up horrendously early (any early morning was a horror to Poe) and stumbled through his morning routine as fast as possible. His new squad---even the old vets like Jess and Snap---were going to run battle drills that morning to test squad cohesion. He needed to be on the field first to set targets. 

He was running battle formations in his head when he got to the hanger and opened the bay doors. 

And then he stopped. 

Because Rey and Luke Skywalker were sitting cross-legged on the grass field, their faces turned up and to the east, to the rising sun. Poe, who knew enough about the calm serenity of the Force from the outside, watched and he could see the fog of their breath leave their nostrils in the cold morning air. 

He hadn’t sat still like that in….maybe ever. He always had someplace to be and if he didn’t, he found one anyway. He kept a running tally in his head of things that he’d accomplished, things left to do, things to be added later. 

It was creepy when both pairs of eyes opened and they were both focused on him, half a field away. 

“Good morning, Commander,” called Luke Skywalker. He stood and pulled his robe from the ground next to where he’d been sitting and put it back on. Poe approached and nodded to him. 

“Sir,” said Poe. 

“Morning, Poe,” said Rey, more warmly. She also stood and walked toward him. “Are you sleeping yet?”

Poe frowned, panic rising at the words. “I sleep _fine_ , Rey,” he said brusquely and turned back to the X-Wings lined up and silent. “I have drills with the squad.”

“Of course,” said Luke, his voice too cool. “We are finished here.”

He bowed his head to Rey and left---not toward the bunker, but out across the field to the forest beyond. 

“He shouldn’t wander around---” Poe started to say and cut himself off. 

“He’ll be fine,” said Rey kindly, but still somehow like she was talking to an unusually slow child. 

“Right.”

Poe found his clipboard where he had left it, hanging off the starboard side of his own X-Wing, and started running through the pre-demo checklist. Rey followed behind him.

“You’re still not sleeping well,” she said, dogged, after a few moments of silence. “I thought you might be by now.”

Poe checked his impulse to slam the clipboard down on the X-Wing’s hood. Instead, he gritted his teeth. 

“I told you, I sleep fine.”

“He did it to me too, you know,” said Rey casually. She ran a hand along the next X-Wing parked next to Poe’s. “What he did to you. I can’t sleep either.”

That stopped Poe. “The report said you used the Force to repel him,” he said. 

She nodded. “Eventually, yes.”

Poe got the picture. He sighed and leaned against his X-Wing. 

“No, I’m not sleeping well yet,” he admitted finally. “But I _am_ sleeping. It’s an improvement.”

Rey looked at him, waiting for more. 

“The sweater you sent me helps,” he added, compelled to fill the silence. 

This time she smiled. “I thought it might. It helped me too,” she said. “I got two.”

***

His squad gathered on the tarmac an hour later. The new recruits were young, some of them young enough that they really shouldn’t be out of the Academy yet. If there had been an Academy to send them back to, Poe would happily have done so. But they were strapped for pilots and these were the ones who were closest to being ready for the field. 

“Alright, newbies,” he said, “we’ll be running routine drills first and then battle practice after.” 

There was a low murmur of excitement among the new recruits and Jess helpfully rolled her eyes. It was a small piece of the familiar, a tiny flicker of the ghosts they were both seeing in the faces of the newbies. 

“Get in formations. We’ll start with pairs,” said Poe. He rattled off a list of partners that he had prepared the night before---alone over dinner, as expected---that was designed to pair weaker pilots with strong gunners and vice versa. They weren’t flying the T-70s today, which operated fine with just one pilot functioning as gunner simultaneously. Instead, they were in an older model, the F-30s, where the gunner and the pilot sat back-to-back in the cockpit. The choice was a bit eccentric because the F-30s hadn’t been in standard use for the past three decades, but the loss of the majority of the Republic Fleet combined with the Resistance’s losses at Starkiller meant that even antiques were being refitted for active duty. 

Poe finished the call list and turned to watch the squad rush off to their ships. It took him a moment to realize Finn was waiting patiently for his attention. 

“No,” said Poe firmly. “Definitely not.”

“I do know the routine,” said Finn, shrugging. “I’ve been practicing with Snap.”

“You’ve only been practicing gunner drills with Snap,” Poe pointed out. “This is a pilot run.”

“Yeah, and you’re the pilot,” said Finn pointing to Poe. Then he pointed to himself. “And I’m your gunner.”

Snap had ambled back toward Poe and Finn. “He’s ready, boss,” he said. “I prepped him special for this.”

They both looked at Poe, waiting for a decision. It would have been nice to be able to think of a good excuse to ground them both. 

“You do need a gunner if you’re coming up with us, boss,” added Snap. He raised his eyebrows and, yeah, his old squad used to mommy him all the time like this. The newbies weren’t quite over the stage where they snapped into parade rest when he walked by, but the vets knew better. 

Poe sighed. 

“Fine,” he said to Finn. “You’re with me.”

Finn punched the air and let out a whoop. Behind him, still running pre-flight checks on her ship with one of the newbies, Jess paused to make a very graphic, very anatomically-suspect gesture in their direction. Poe scowled at her while Finn was---of fucking course---hugging Snap. 

***

They ran the form drills and his squad was so perfect it was blinding. Every turn was executed with such precision and every spin was so exact in the math that they might as well have just taken that fourth year test in the Academy when all the numbers were fresh in your head. 

That was a sobering thought. Some of them _were_ fresh off that test. 

The battle practice went less perfectly. A _lot_ less perfectly. One might even be tempted to say, ‘badly.’ They had ten ships all told, including Testor’s, Snap’s, and Poe’s. None of the newbie gunners were able to hit the target while the pilot executed the third maneuver (a triple spin and double loop). Poe watched from the sidelines for a while, clenching his teeth. 

“They’re waiting for the computer to lock,” said Finn behind him. “They’re relying on the old tech as if it had the time delay of the new tech.”

Which was true. The newbies had never flown anything without immediate relay on the targeting systems. 

Poe flicked the comm so that all the ships could hear him. “Alright, gunners, you know you’re supposed to allow for the delays in the targeting systems,” he reminded them. “You have to predict by about ten seconds.”

“They’re not gonna know it unless they see it,” Finn said in a low voice, hand over the mic on his helmet so that the comms couldn’t pick him up. 

Poe nodded.

“Squad, clear the target for a demonstration run from Black Leader,” he said into the comm. 

He pulled the F-30 around into formation. “You ready, Finn?”

“Ready when you are, Black Leader,” said Finn which….was a little thrilling to hear in Finn’s voice. It was not anywhere near the frenetic energy of the last time they had been back to back in a ship, but it was almost _better_ to have Finn buzzing with excitement without the spike of terror. Buzzed, but still contained. And calling him by his call sign. Poe had never had a thrill go up his spine when anyone else had said his call sign before, not even the first time General Organa used it over the comm. 

Poe focused on the moment instead because he was a professional and the best pilot in the fleet. 

When they got to the third maneuver, Finn let out three quick blasts that hit the target absolute dead center. 

“Did you see that?” he crowed. “Did you see that?!”

Poe couldn’t---not if all of the worlds in the galaxy were on the line---have held back his own wide grin. 

“I saw it,” he said. “It was perfect.”

***

Two more runs and about half of the gunners were hitting the mark. They broke for lunch and headed back for the ground. 

Finn jumped out of the cockpit before the visor had finished rising. Jess had jumped out of her ship next to Poe’s and Finn was practically vibrating with enthusiasm when he ran up to her. 

“Nice moves,” said Jess and did the supposedly secret X-Wing formation handshake with him that they supposedly stopped using back at the Academy. 

“I thought we agreed that was juvenile,” Poe called from his cockpit. 

“Oh, sorry!” said Finn, actually looking apologetic for a second. 

Jess shushed him and shouted back to Poe, “I remember you _telling_ me it was juvenile. I don’t remember agreeing.”

Poe grinned at her as he jumped down. 

The newbies trailed off, comparing notes and offering each other congratulations, towards the mess hall. A couple of the gunners lingered at their ships, all from ships that hadn’t made the third maneuver. 

Finn, Jess, and Snap had all started towards the mess when Finn looked back towards Poe. “You coming?”

Poe waved them off. “In a minute,” he said. “Save me a seat.” They wouldn’t. Jess and Snap knew better when Poe had pilots who needed him. 

Finn looked like he wanted to argue, but Snap pulled him away with a firm hand on his elbow. He and Jess would explain. 

Poe gathered the stragglers together.

“Alright, gunners,” he said. “There’s no shame in not being the first one to get it right. We all get there eventually, every time. This is my squad, and that’s my promise.”

A couple of them heaved sighs of relief. It wasn’t a huge surprise to Poe that the ones who had lingered were the ones who had never done real sims before, the ones who had only accidentally not been at the Academy when it (and the rest of the Republic) had been hit. 

The Republic Army was built differently from the Resistance one. The Republic had resources and manpower to spare. The Republic dumped every pilot who wasn’t performing at peak form. The Academy functioned as a winnowing mechanism to make sure only the best of the best made it through. Every test, every examination, every _day_ , they cut dozens of cadets and sent them home. There were always more than enough ready to step in for the incoming class. 

The Resistance, on the other hand, was always struggling to find enough ships for pilots or pilots for ships, depending on the battle. There was no pilot they were willing to waste on a mission they were clearly unequipped for, no task they wouldn’t take the time to walk through and get a consensus on. General Organa had made that absolutely clear when she first started the Resistance Army. The deserters who had come with her---Poe included---had been briefed by her in person.

“We don’t waste lives here,” she had said, her face grim. “That’s what makes us different.”

Poe had loved her immediately for it. Hell, he had abandoned his post and left his father and their home because of it. 

“Tell me what was hard for you,” he told the gunners. “And we’ll work it out.”

It took all of the lunch break, but they all had a handle on where they’d gone wrong by the time the rest of the squad came back. Rey was walking at Finn’s side, conspicuous next to all the orange jumpsuits. 

“You skipped the meal,” she said to Poe when they approached. “There’s always food.” It was clipped, matter-of-fact. A conundrum she wanted him to explain, maybe. 

He smiled and ran a hand through his hair. “I can grab---” he started to say, but she tossed something in his direction and he had to catch it or be hit in the face by it. 

“Eat it,” she said. It was a loaf of Harshuun bread, one of the only foods that they always had in overstock. The loaves were made out of the plentiful rice grains from the planet which meant that it was the only food that was guaranteed to be in abundance at every meal. It wasn’t exciting food by any stretch of the imagination, but it was filling and quick to eat. 

“We thought you might be hungry,” added Finn. 

Rey crossed her arms. “Finn was worried,” she said, not quite meeting Poe’s eyes. 

“Thanks,” said Poe, inexplicably warmed. 

***

The entire squad had the third maneuver down by dinner. A Rishii boy---a child, almost---hugged Poe as the squad finally left the hangar at the end of the day. 

After today, this really would be _his_ squad, not just a collection of people assigned to fly with him and be trained by him. And he’d learned early on in his command career that there was no high better than feeling proud of your squad. 

And then Finn and Rey---surrounded by _his_ squad---inched away from each other when he entered the mess, both making room for him between them and Poe could have flown again, right out his boots. Pressed between them, grinning as his squad joked about the day and recounted for other teams’ recruits how hard that maneuver had been and how it had seemed so impossible and how they all made it anyway. 

It was a good day. 

***

He woke shivering and so cold later that night, even with the warmth of Rey’s sweater and the knowledge that there were concrete walls behind him, even with the warmth of _how good_ the day had been.

There were fingers pushing through his brain and he couldn’t stop shaking. 

He pressed himself back into the corner of the two walls he had pushed his bed into and let the cold from the concrete seep into his sweating, shivering back. Compared to the cold he was imagining, the real one from the walls felt almost warm. 

He closed his eyes and counted until he stopped shaking too much to stand. Then he pulled on a pair of shoes and pulled off Rey’s sweater and went for a jog.

Each huff of icy breath he breathed out formed a cloud ahead of him as he ran. He counted his breaths, remembering to breath in again every time. 

He was a soldier and he had a squad depending on him. He’d been through worse. Others had been through worse. Finn had knitted his fucking spine back together. Poe didn’t even have a scratch on him. He could do better. 

***

He made his third loop around the compound as the sun finally broke over the mountain. He avoided the loading bay and the empty tarmac in front of it. He came to a breathless stop just shy of the bay doors. Just around the corner, he knew, there would be two figures bent solemnly in their meditation. 

It was petty and shallow and he knew it, but he turned back, finding the long way around to get back to his own room. 

***

Later, sitting across the table from Rey and Finn and their easy smiles, he felt old and weak. He smiled quietly when they looked towards him and pushed the food on his plate around. 

A new recruit--not from Poe’s squad--tapped him on the shoulder and saluted as he handed him a datapad. 

“You really don’t have to do that,” Poe told him. 

“Sorry, sir!” said the recruit in a clipped, loud tone. 

“Or that,” added Poe, wincing. His head hurt and his legs ached. “You can just _talk_.”

The recruit looked hurt, but nodded. His eyes flickered with brief curiosity towards Finn and Rey, but he left when Poe enunciated, “Thank you, you can go” pointedly. 

“What is it?” Finn asked, gesturing toward the datapad. 

“It’s a briefing packet,” said Poe. He opened the first file and skimmed it and then skimmed the next one. 

“A briefing for what?” Finn asked, leaning a little over the table. 

“Mission,” said Poe brusquely, focused on the pad. He caught himself and looked up. “Sorry, it’s a mission. Looks like we’re back in action.”

“We only got Skywalker back two days ago,” said Finn. “Is that really enough time--”

“I don’t _know_ , Finn, I only just got the packet,” said Poe. “I have to go to the General’s debrief. I’ll know later.”

From what he could see, the First Order was beginning to mass its forces. There was the beginnings of a blockade forming around the Duro system. Duro prime was a fairly standard Human-colonized planet with plenty of natural resources, but the outposts on the moons tended to be pretty seedy. Poe had already been on a couple of missions to connect with black market contacts on behalf of the Resistance on those outposts. They got a lot of their medical supplies through Duro. 

It wouldn’t be that that had caught the General’s attention though. They could redirect their contacts and get them out of the system easily enough, re-route trade through a different outpost. It would be tedious, but they could absolutely do without Duro for the time being if the First Order was serious about the blockade. 

The part that probably caught the General’s attention was the group of refugees the Resistance had been trying to smuggle beyond the First Order’s reach that were currently stranded on the second Duro moon. It was a ragtag collection of people who had been away from their homes for one reason or another that day and who had lived to see their entire system blown out of the sky. 

Poe had a bad feeling about this mission.


End file.
